Why Did Brian Armstrong Start New Limit?
Brian Armstrong started New Limit because he saw few great teams in longevity and thought a lot of the field was snake oil. He likes being a builder and thinks he is probably better as an entrepreneur than as an investor. Some of his investments amount to hoping a cool outcome happens, and once in a while someone has to remind him that the point of investing is to make money.
Coinbase went public in 2021, very profitable after a 10 year journey. He asked whether he wanted something different or was only at the beginning, and he decided he was just at the beginning. The mission of increasing economic freedom was just getting started. About half of 1% of global GDP was running on crypto, with a lot of jobs unfinished. He wanted the ability to try other ideas and help incubate companies, whether he ran them or not.
He listed the big technology trends that excited him: space, AI, fusion energy, and brain machine interfaces. Each already had good teams, and he had no strong thesis for doing any of them differently. He wanted work the world needed where he uniquely added value, and longevity was the gap. Money made in software, in his view, carries an obligation to go into hard tech, the more capital-intensive work. He was a little inspired by Elon Musk and PayPal.
